Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break
with guest Melissa Reid
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we were talking
about really something
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that should be causing outrage
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in the western world
and in the United State.
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The Christians in not--
that is the Christians country
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but the Christian
society Of the United States
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that in the Middle East
we witnessing a huge problem,
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persecution
genocide against Christians.
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Right, it's terrible.
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And its just I would
like to be able to do more
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as I mentioned
on another segment.
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As part of the North American
Religious Liberty Association
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we've written letters
to the secretary of state
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urging the state department
to become more involved
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in stopping this
kind of violence,
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this atrocity really but
yeah we were talking about
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what more as
individuals you know can we do.
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I think bringing
awareness and saying you know
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much as we have with
individual cases of individual's
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whether those Christian
pastors or just church members
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in Iran and Pakistan that
have been thrown in prison.
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We've talked about
those in previous issues.
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Not letting those,
the attentions go away
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from the individuals.
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So I think, you
know, may be that's what
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we're called to do
here in this situation
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is continuing to
speak about what's happening
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and not letting it die down--
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As I tried to point out before
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I think just speaking
about it has value for us. Yeah.
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Even if we can't change
the international dynamic much,
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you know, we got to face it.
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The US keeps reminding
itself it's a superpower
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but the superpower
doesn't mean you can
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snap your fingers
and change societies
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and we learn with Iraq
you can't regime change it
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will without
consequences. Right.
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So, this is not necessarily
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a huge amount that the US can do
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but it has a
moral responsibility
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to be a moral voice.
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So, I do believe
Kerry is secretary of state
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can speak out were aggressively
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about what's happening in Syria.
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Man, you know
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there is two-and-half
million Christians there.
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And as I said you know good
proportion already are refugees.
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Right, right.
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Now we need to, we need
to say something about this.
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Before the break
I was about to give
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an example of Richard
Nixon who said many things
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that we can roll
arise at his bigotry.
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So, I'm gonna tell
this but please I hope
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our viewer thinks
that its what I think
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or even what the US thinks now.
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Okay. But during the civil war
between East and West Pakistan
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which related in the
formation of Bangladesh
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he said to Henry Kissinger,
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its nothing but a
bunch of brown Muslims,
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he says nobody in the US cares.
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It's just an incredible state.
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Yeah. And I'm afraid that I
really kept to the integrity.
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I tried to say
things that in my view
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get to the real issue here.
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I am afraid that even for
many western US Christians
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this same construct is
that work in the Middle East.
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They're Christians?
Yes, but they're not us.
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Right. They are other people.
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May be they are
brown Christians.
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Right. And it comes
naturally to human beings.
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Right. But we
should fight it and--
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Well. You know
John Donne in that poem
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"If any one is affected,
I'm part of that island."
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Absolutely. What
affects that person affects me.
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Yeah. If someone dies there
I'm minimized and hurt too.
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Well, not only we
are brothers and sisters
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in Christ
regardless of manmade borders
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or you know our
countries or institutions.
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We are all, you know,
creatures created by our,
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you know, by our God whether,
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you know, even if
you'll take away the same,
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you know, faith
group we should care about,
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you know, things
that are happening
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to two individuals regardless
of if we worship the same God
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or if, you know,
they're next to our neighbor
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or in they are
in other continent.
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We should speak
out on behalf of,
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you know, on
their half and hopefully
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you know not that we do things
for self preservation but,
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you know, if the
situation is reversed
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I certainly
help that individual.
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So we'd speak out
on our behalf. Yeah.
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I lately have been
reading and watching
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a lot of Christopher Hitchens,
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the late
Christopher Hitchens comments.
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And he has a book
that I have an author
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just write an
article for Liberty on.
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You know the main
title is "God Is Not Great"
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which I think it's
a very wrong title.
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But then he subtitled as "Why
Religion Poisons Everything"
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or "How Religion
Poisons Everything."
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Religious shouldn't
poison everything it often does
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but if there's
any value to religion
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it's a sensibility that creates
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a common bond between peoples.
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But since there is a
poisonous religious attitude
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in the religious
in the Middle East
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what I think is most
important in North America
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or in the United States
it's not just for Christians
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to raise the voice against them.
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It's for the Muslim community.
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I don't hear it very much.
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I'm not saying they don't
but they then I would hope
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there be louder
voices is because in doing so
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they will be openly
committing in the United States
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to the values that
United States exemplified.
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And so we have an
educative responsibility
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with other religious
groups within our country
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to not hold them to a camp
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because they've done it
but to raise their sensibility.
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Right, right a sort
of an act of good faith.
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Yeah, which will change people?
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You change-- I
think it was William
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what we get the James Strait.
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I think it was William Jones
but it might be Henry Jones.
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He made the statement
he says "while it is--
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it's true that
thought precedes action."
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Yeah. You change your
thoughts your actions change.
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Absolutely. And so
ideas matter greatly.
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Yes, now I think that--
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And to make
someone express something
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is part of that process
of moderating and in a view.
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It really is you
know you see these images
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and its just breaks
your heart and I feel like--
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first of all we know,
you know, as Christians
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the God is the
ultimate protector
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and we know that here
and His angles are down there
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and they are
doing all that you know
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they are watching
after these individuals
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and they're comforting families
that have lost loved ones
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and we
certainly want to remember
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these individuals in our prayers
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and be grateful that
they have the comfort.
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Absolutely. Of a
second coming of--
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you know, but
their immediate reality
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is just senseless and tragic.
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You mentioned the second coming
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in Seventh-day
Adventist our belief is premised
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on that Seventh-day,
that's the law of God
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and honoring God
through the Saturday Sabbath.
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Seventh-day Adventist we expect
that the coming of Christ.
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Praise the Lord. We
need to keep that in mind.
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Hitchens and others make a
lot and they're partly right
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that the major will
face Christianity, Islam
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in particular have
a sort of death wish
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is the way that secular see it
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that we can't wait
till the end of the world
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and some radical religions
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and those fractions particularly
currently now Islam,
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they want to hurry it loud.
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Right--we get that
question frequently,
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you know, why should we advocate
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on behalf of the
religious freedom?
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Absolutely, thank you.
You picked up an angle.
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Yes. Say that again
if so that our listeners
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really get the
important what you're saying.
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Right-- well, you know,
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we as a local
churches frequently
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and lot of times
we're asked by members
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you know, why would we
advocate for religious freedom?
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Don't we want the
Sunday laws to come?
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Yeah, why are we
delaying the inevitable?
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Why are we delaying, yes?
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Lets get there quick
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and it just misses
the whole point I think.
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It does absolutely
I'm I thinking of council
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from Sister White it says
that "if we don't do any thing
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on behalf of those voiceless
and if we don't advocate
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for religious freedom
while we have the opportunity
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you know that's not
what we're suppose to do."
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We're not suppose to sit quietly
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and doing things
it's actually you know--
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Well, it'll come it will--
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the persecution
will come quickly
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and that we have an
obligation to hold it back.
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Absolutely. And this is what
I tell our own church members.
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The reason way to hold it
back is not to save ourselves
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because yes, you
could make a logic,
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well, Christ is
coming the quicker
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we can be with the Lord--
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Yes. Paul said
something that affect,
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you know I want
to be with the Lord.
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But we are here for a purpose
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we hear to share
with other people
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and give them something
that we think is important
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and we and if we're
concerned about our fellowmen
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we want them to be with us.
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Right and-- But
it's very--selfish we--
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and more than
selfish when someone say that
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it tells me that they haven't
really understood Christianity.
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Right, well and you
know though I feel like
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we are effective in our jobs
there is no way in the world
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that we can hold back this--
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Well, that's what I tell
people but of course not.
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But we can be the
part of the dynamic
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that has that is it's in.
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Yes.
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And another part of what
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we told the
Seventh-day Adventist
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that if we truly do
what we are called to do it
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will on one level
precipitate conflict.
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And like Martin Luther
one of the prime reformers
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in the great reformation
he felt and others felt
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that they brought
it upon themselves.
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Well, it's isn't true
because there was an era there
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that wouldn't
broke any opposition.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And I need to
qualify one thing even though
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3ABN regular viewers
know what you're talk about.
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Ellen White was a
pioneer of the Adventist Church
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who we believe
it's plenty of evidence
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that she was given
direct communication
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from God in a
pseudo prophetic manner.
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And so when she says
that you know what the idea
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is that God had showed her
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this was a dynamic that
we need to be careful of.
00:10:00.70\00:10:03.58
Absolutely, absolutely.
00:10:03.61\00:10:05.22
I mean, our whole
goal as Christians
00:10:05.25\00:10:08.05
is to share the love
of Christ with others.
00:10:08.08\00:10:10.77
And, and we are just
anxious to have the opportunity
00:10:10.80\00:10:13.82
to do that for
as long as possible.
00:10:13.85\00:10:15.58
So we suddenly want to lift up
00:10:15.61\00:10:17.24
those individuals
in the Middle East
00:10:17.27\00:10:19.38
that are going
through these terrific times.
00:10:19.41\00:10:22.15
We want, you know
Christ love and His peace
00:10:22.18\00:10:24.78
and His comfort to
wrap there His, you know,
00:10:24.81\00:10:26.93
its arms around them
and give them courage
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in this time of trouble--
this literal time of trouble
00:10:30.53\00:10:32.76
that they're experiencing.
00:10:32.79\00:10:34.95
I remember sitting on
the beach with my feet
00:10:34.98\00:10:38.27
in the beautiful
warm tropical sand
00:10:38.30\00:10:41.94
and waves lapping up against
this as I spoke to gentleman
00:10:41.97\00:10:46.94
and his wife and daughter
from Lebanon not to long ago.
00:10:46.97\00:10:52.44
Wonderful environment,
I couldn't really sense
00:10:52.47\00:10:55.04
any religious threat there
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but they told me
about life in Lebanon.
00:10:56.33\00:10:58.78
How as Christians
when he was growing out
00:10:58.81\00:11:01.45
whenever they got on the bus
00:11:01.48\00:11:03.49
the driver would
ask them their name.
00:11:03.52\00:11:05.52
And of course their name signals
their religious affiliation.
00:11:05.55\00:11:08.92
And he said his
parents were horrified,
00:11:08.95\00:11:11.62
terrified that
before they reach the school
00:11:11.65\00:11:14.08
they might be dragged
off by some religious faction
00:11:14.11\00:11:16.65
and harassed and
perhaps even killed
00:11:16.68\00:11:19.51
as was often the case.
00:11:19.54\00:11:22.31
The Middle East currently is
a killing ground for Christians.
00:11:22.34\00:11:26.85
It's not even so good
for Muslim Minorities.
00:11:26.88\00:11:30.93
The spirit of Satan is aboard,
persecution, murder, mayhem,
00:11:30.96\00:11:37.79
civil war all of it is
swirling around those people
00:11:37.82\00:11:41.38
and we need to pray fervently
00:11:41.41\00:11:43.45
not just that religious liberty
00:11:43.48\00:11:45.16
will win the day
but that charity,
00:11:45.19\00:11:47.97
human interaction will
be restored to the level
00:11:48.00\00:11:50.65
where all faiths
can it at least coexist
00:11:50.68\00:11:53.38
and people can seek
truth for themselves.
00:11:53.41\00:11:56.30
For Liberty Insider
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:56.33\00:12:00.22